© 2005 The Brotherhood of Man Library
Obviously the most important sources of information on Jesus are in the New Testament. The Gospels are evidently faith documents written from a Christian viewpoint. But are they reliable historical documents?
There are several reasons to consider these documents as historically reliable.–they are close in time to the actual life of Jesus; ancient manuscripts are abundant; chronological information from Luke further indicates their historical accuracy; and archaeological discoveries corroborate information provided in the Gospels. Finally, the effects of the Gospels must also be considered.
The texts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not name their authors whereas in John 21:24, John himself is claimed to be the author of the fourth gospel.
Matthew and John were both apostles, eye witnesses to the events narrated. Mark may have been the young man who fled naked the night that Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:51-52); he was later involved with Paul in missionary work (Acts 15:37), with Barnabas (Acts 15:39), and with Peter (1 Peter 5:13). Luke was Paul’s traveling companion (Col. 4:12; 2 Tim 4:11) and was also the generally accepted author of Acts.
Earliest tradition vouches for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the authors of their Gospels. For Matthew, information derives from Papias of Hierapolis around A.D. 140. About Mark, Papias states that he was “Peter’s interpreter,” who wrote down Peter’s story of Jesus.
About A.D.185 Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in France, wrote that Luke, Paul’s fellow apostle, had written a Gospel which provided the story of Jesus not given in the other three Gospels. While there is uncertainty concerning the chronology for writing of the Gospels, there is no doubt all were written within a generation of actual events.
References to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus occur frequently in the Pauline Epistles that can be dated with reasonable precision to the middle of the first century and may even pre-date the Gospels themselves. In 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul cites a tradition he had received, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This letter was written from Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:8) towards the end of Paul’s third journey, the generally accepted date being A.D. 57.
In the same epistle Paul passes on another “tradition”–the death and resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:3-9). In these verses he lists people who had seen Jesus after his resurrection, “most of whom were still alive” at the time of Paul’s writing (more than 500 according to both Paul in 1 Cor. 15:6 and The Urantia Book p. 2042). The survival of eye witnesses some twenty-five years after the events was, for Paul, clear evidence that Jesus had indeed come back to life.
The John Rylands papyrus is the oldest extant fragment of the Gospel of John. Found in Egypt, it dates from the first half of the second century, thus confirming the composition of the Gospel of John by the end of the first century A.D.
Most of the Gospel of John also appears in the Bodmer Papyrus 11 from the same period. The Chester Beatty papyri, also found in Egypt, are a collection of codices, three of which contain major portions of the New Testament. Of the discovery of these papyri in 1930, Sir Frederick Kenyon wrote:
“No other extant manuscripts of ancient works come from so near the time of their original writing.”
The number of ancient New Testament manuscripts is also remarkable. In Greek alone there are at least 5,686.
Because Christianity was from the beginning a missionary religion, the New Testament soon began to be translated into other languages. The first of these was into Syriac sometime in the second century; the oldest extant Syriac manuscripts come from the fourth century. Latin versions followed, culminating in the Vulgate, translated by Jerome in the second half of the fourth century. Coptic manuscripts come from the third century, whereas Armenian and Ethiopic versions are from the fifth and sixth centuries. In all more than 19,000 manuscripts in other languages survive.
Not only do many manuscripts exist but the writings of the New Testament are well attested in the works of the Church Fathers. The writings of Justin Martyr (died A.D. 165), Irenaeus (A.D. 130-202), Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150-215), Origen (A.D. 185-254), Tertullian (A.D. 160-225), Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236) and Eusebius (A.D. 260-340) contain over 19,000 quotations and citations from the Gospels. So much of the New Testament appears in the writings of the Church Fathers that, had we no ancient manuscripts, the greater part of the New Testament could be reconstructed from their writings.
Certainly there are minor variations among these many manuscripts but scholars agree that there is no modification in the basic message that they convey.
In ancient times precise dates seem to have been less important than they are today and, in the Gospels, only Luke provides specific chronological data. In Luke 2:1,2, we find: “And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.”
Josephus identifies Cyrenius as governor in Syria from A.D. 6 onwards. However an inscription from Antioch shows he was proconsul in Syria from 11 B.C. until after the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C.
A papyrus published by the British Museum shows that the Roman census took place every fourteen years, with one beginning in 8 B.C. In addition, an archaeological find from Egypt shows that it was customary for people to return to their city of birth “in order that they may complete the family registration of the enrollment.”
Again in Luke 3:1,2 we find its author demonstrating the historicity of his Gospel when he states:
"(1) Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother, Philip, tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanais, the tetrarch of Abilene. (2) Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John….
Pilate’s tenure was from A.D. 26-36, Herod Antipas from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39, Philip from 4.B.C. to A.D. 33/34. Caiaphas was the official high priest from A.D. 18/19 to A.D. 36, while his father-in-law, Annas, although deposed in A.D. 15, appears to have retained his “high priest” title. Regarding Lysanias, an inscription from the reign of Tiberias has shown that one of that name was indeed tetrarch in Abila, near Damascus.
This carefully constructed synchronization of dates by Luke helps to provide confidence in the historicity of the events narrated.
The naming by Luke of Lysanias as being tetrarch of Abila is but one of the archaeological evidences for the accuracy of the Gospel stories. In fact, Luke’s mention of geographical sites–thirty-two countries, fifty four cities, and nine islands–has proved to be totally accurate. Though New Testament archaeology has not yet corroborated where Jesus lived, it has shown there was a synagogue at Capernaum in the first century A.D. Thus archaeology has illuminated and in some cases confirmed the existence of people, places, and cultural factors relevant to the historical Jesus.
Because Nazareth was not mentioned by Paul or Josephus and did not appear in the Talmud, some thought that town only came into being decades or even centuries after Jesus. However archaeologists have found lists of priests who were sent from Jerusalem to other places after the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.–and in the lists was Nazareth.
Furthermore, first century tombs have been discovered at the Nazareth site as well as the remains of three watch towers, irrigation trenches, and agricultural terraces. There is agreement that a village consisting of eighty to one hundred houses existed there during the first century A.D
The study of first century ports surrounding the Sea of Galilee–Capernaum, Gergesa, Magdala, and Tiberias–was made possible by a modern drought. A well-preserved first-century fishing boat found near Magdala adds to the information on fishing in the Sea of Galilee. In John’s Gospel (5:2) we find the affirmation that the Pool of Bethesda had five porticos (porches). This accurately describes the ruins of the double pool that are still located to the north of temple area and is identified as the site where Jesus healed a paralytic.
Further archaeological evidence takes the form of Roman coins dated A.D.29 and 31 that bear the name of Pontius Pilate. An inscription bearing Pilate’s name was also discovered in 1961 in Caesarea thus corroborating the Gospel and extra biblical material affirming that Pilate was procurator of Judea at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Archaeology has also corroborated the Gospel’s references to coins–Jewish, Greek, and Roman. The widow’s “mite” or “copper coin” was a Jewish coin worth half a “kodrantes.” Matthew (10:29) tells us that “two sparrows were sold for a ”farthing“–actually a Roman ”assarion“ worth four ”kodrantes.“ The Roman ”denarius“ (equivalent to the Greek ”drachma") was a small silver coin considered to be normal wages for a day’s labor (Matthew 20:2,9,10). Excavations have found all of these coins, dated from the time of Jesus and the Gospels.
Christian symbols and prayers to Jesus have been discovered by archaeology that can be dated to less than a quarter of a century after Jesus’ death. E.L. Sukenik discovered two ossuaries in a tomb near Jerusalem that were dated to A.D. 50. On them were charcoal graffiti of four crosses and the phrases “Iesous iou” and “Iesous aloth” The first phrase is understood as a prayer to Jesus for help, the second a request that Jesus would raise the person whose bones occupied the ossuary. These graffiti are believed to be the earliest Christian inscriptions.